and assigned that company to work on this case. Hume also personally visited the sites of many robberies and diligently scoured the area, looking for the smallest clues. At several of the locations, Hume’s team found the robber’s abandoned camp, which indicated he had waited there patiently, sometimes for several days, for the stage to arrive.
Bowles’s first close call came near Strawberry, California, in July 1882, when he attempted the biggest job of his career. The Oroville stage was carrying more than eighteen thousand dollars in gold bullion, although it isn’t known whether he was aware of that. But perhaps because thatgold was on board, Hume had assigned a shotgun-armed guard to ride next to the driver. Black Bart suddenly appeared in the middle of the trail and took hold of the horse, which bolted, and the coach ran off the road. The robber’s attention was diverted, so he failed to see armed guard George Hackett lift his shotgun and let loose a volley. The buckshot lifted Bowles’s bowler off his head, grazing his scalp. Bowles had no desire—or ability—to shoot back; instead, he disappeared into the brush, leaving his bloodied hat lying in the dirt. The robbery had failed, but he had escaped. By the time a posse got there, he was long gone and had left no other evidence.
Bowles continued to lead two completely different lives: one in San Francisco, where he was Charles Bolton, a man of leisure and wealth, a socialite who slept comfortably on clean sheets and was always welcomed in the better establishments of the city; the other in the wilderness, where he camped alone as he waited for the next stage, sleeping on the hard ground, confronting the elements, eating sardines out of tin cans. Although he subsisted mostly on his ill-gotten gains, he did invest some money in several small businesses that apparently returned a small profit.
It probably isn’t accurate to claim that Hume pursued Black Bart with the same diligence and ferocity with which Victor Hugo’s classic Inspector Javert hunted for Jean Valjean, but his pursuit lasted more than eight years. Hume was head of investigations for a large company and responsible for solving many cases, but clearly this was the big one. From his investigations he began to develop a theory that was considered radical at the time—criminals will often return to the scene of their crimes. This was especially true of Black Bart, who required a specific set of circumstances for his crimes to succeed: Because he was on foot, he couldn’t pursue a stage, so he needed a secluded place where the stage was already moving slowly and thick foliage nearby through which he could make his escape without fear of pursuit. There were only a limited number of such locations, which made Hume believe he was destined to use the same site more than once.
And indeed, Black Bart’s end came in the place where he had begun, the summit of Funk Hill. On November 3, 1883, driver Reason McConnell and Jimmy Rolleri pegged four shots at the bandit. Although the first three shots missed, the fourth shot nicked Bowles’s hand. The robber ran about a quarter of a mile, then stopped and wrapped a handkerchief around his knuckles to stem the bleeding. He hid the four thousand dollars he’d grabbed in a rotten log and kept the five hundred dollars in coins, put his rifle inside a hollow tree, and made his walkaway. He covered the hundred miles back to the city in three days, then went by train to Reno to lie low for several more.
Hume and Morse rode to the scene of the crime as quickly as their horses would take them. The driver McConnell was certain he’d hit the robber; he’d heard him yelping. The two detectives carefully searched the entire area and eventually found several items that had been left behind in haste, including a derby hat, size 7¼; a tin of supplies, including sugar, coffee, and crackers; a belt; a binocular case; a magnifying glass; a razor; two flour sacks—and a
Bowles’s first close call came near Strawberry, California, in July 1882, when he attempted the biggest job of his career. The Oroville stage was carrying more than eighteen thousand dollars in gold bullion, although it isn’t known whether he was aware of that. But perhaps because thatgold was on board, Hume had assigned a shotgun-armed guard to ride next to the driver. Black Bart suddenly appeared in the middle of the trail and took hold of the horse, which bolted, and the coach ran off the road. The robber’s attention was diverted, so he failed to see armed guard George Hackett lift his shotgun and let loose a volley. The buckshot lifted Bowles’s bowler off his head, grazing his scalp. Bowles had no desire—or ability—to shoot back; instead, he disappeared into the brush, leaving his bloodied hat lying in the dirt. The robbery had failed, but he had escaped. By the time a posse got there, he was long gone and had left no other evidence.
Bowles continued to lead two completely different lives: one in San Francisco, where he was Charles Bolton, a man of leisure and wealth, a socialite who slept comfortably on clean sheets and was always welcomed in the better establishments of the city; the other in the wilderness, where he camped alone as he waited for the next stage, sleeping on the hard ground, confronting the elements, eating sardines out of tin cans. Although he subsisted mostly on his ill-gotten gains, he did invest some money in several small businesses that apparently returned a small profit.
It probably isn’t accurate to claim that Hume pursued Black Bart with the same diligence and ferocity with which Victor Hugo’s classic Inspector Javert hunted for Jean Valjean, but his pursuit lasted more than eight years. Hume was head of investigations for a large company and responsible for solving many cases, but clearly this was the big one. From his investigations he began to develop a theory that was considered radical at the time—criminals will often return to the scene of their crimes. This was especially true of Black Bart, who required a specific set of circumstances for his crimes to succeed: Because he was on foot, he couldn’t pursue a stage, so he needed a secluded place where the stage was already moving slowly and thick foliage nearby through which he could make his escape without fear of pursuit. There were only a limited number of such locations, which made Hume believe he was destined to use the same site more than once.
And indeed, Black Bart’s end came in the place where he had begun, the summit of Funk Hill. On November 3, 1883, driver Reason McConnell and Jimmy Rolleri pegged four shots at the bandit. Although the first three shots missed, the fourth shot nicked Bowles’s hand. The robber ran about a quarter of a mile, then stopped and wrapped a handkerchief around his knuckles to stem the bleeding. He hid the four thousand dollars he’d grabbed in a rotten log and kept the five hundred dollars in coins, put his rifle inside a hollow tree, and made his walkaway. He covered the hundred miles back to the city in three days, then went by train to Reno to lie low for several more.
Hume and Morse rode to the scene of the crime as quickly as their horses would take them. The driver McConnell was certain he’d hit the robber; he’d heard him yelping. The two detectives carefully searched the entire area and eventually found several items that had been left behind in haste, including a derby hat, size 7¼; a tin of supplies, including sugar, coffee, and crackers; a belt; a binocular case; a magnifying glass; a razor; two flour sacks—and a
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